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Does New Zealand have an air quality problem?Part three: Mouldy homes, stuffy offices, infectious interiors
New Zealand has some of the sweetest, purest, clearest clean air anywhere in the world. Most of the time. In most places. This is the continuing story of those other times and places. New Zealand is harbouring four guilty secrets about its air – four situations...
Indoor Air Quality Research Centre of New Zealand calls for government prioritisation on ventilation this World Ventil8 Day
As the world faces the challenge of maintaining healthy indoor environments in an era of pandemics and climate change, World Ventil8 Day 2024 is set to spotlight the critical role of ventilation in enhancing health and wellbeing. This year’s theme “Enabling Action”...
Does New Zealand have an air quality problem? Part two: Wood – it might be “green” but it ain’t clean
New Zealand has some of the sweetest, purest, clearest clean air anywhere in the world. Most of the time. In most places. This is the continuing story of those other times and places. New Zealand is harbouring four guilty secrets about its air – four situations...
Our Air 2024 – Commentary from The Collective
The Ministry for the Environment and StatsNZ released Our Air 2024, an update on the state of the air in Aotearoa/New Zealand's. This is a very important document, and we can't pass the opportunity to give our perspective on its content and what it may mean for air...
AirGrid: Sensor grids to map airborne particulate matter across towns and cities
To create a map of air quality across a town or city you used to have spend significant resources setting up and maintaining a sparse air quality monitoring network and then apply uncertain models which rely on emissions data you don’t usually have. But gone are the...
Does New Zealand have an air quality problem? Part one: Density and diesels don’t mix
New Zealand has some of the sweetest, purest, clearest clean air anywhere in the world. Most of the time. In most places. This is the story of those other times and places. New Zealand is harbouring four guilty secrets about its air – four situations where our...
Why is Particulate Matter so special?
Air pollution is one of those things, like weather and climate, that because it affects everyone we all have an opinion about it. This makes it an ideal area for "citizen" and "traditional" scientists to collaborate and work towards improving our lives. However, air...
On air cleaners and extras
The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged the status quo in a number of ways. From helping the world realize that you can run scientific conferences that are accessible for people who cannot (or will not) travel, to rising the very thorny question of "should kids be...
How good is good enough?
Chasing the dream of accurate and reliable low cost sensors in air qualityFor quite a few years now, there are a number of projects around consumer level (as opposed to research grade) air quality sensors. (Air Quality Egg, Speck, Dustduino, Air Beam and our own...
Home heating: what’s the problem?
Using solid fuel Use of solid fuel, mostly wood but also coal, particularly in some South Island towns, is a major source of night-time airborne pollution in many places in New Zealand. On cold, still winter nights dispersion is poor and emissions from domestic...
What is air pollution?
So what is air pollution? Pollution is bad. The word ‘pollution’ conjures up images of something dark, something menacing, something nasty that turns up where it shouldn’t. The notion of something clean and pure being invaded by something repulsive or distasteful that...